


More Affection Than You Know

by HouseofSannae



Series: Kingdom Hearts Ψ [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Gen, Implied Relationships, Someone please give these poor Nobodies hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 12:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12817353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HouseofSannae/pseuds/HouseofSannae
Summary: Ever since Sora returned home his mother has been noticing some strange behaviour. When she goes to confront him about it, she learns that she may have accidentally adopted an additional three children without realizing it.Chapter 1 is between KHII and KH3D, Chapter 2 is post-KH3D





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Grasping Hold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/957224) by [Splintered_Star](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splintered_Star/pseuds/Splintered_Star). 



            Looking back, it had started more than a decade ago, even though she hadn’t realized it at the time.

            It wasn’t a huge change. It was just, every now and again, her son would have nightmares that he wouldn’t wake up from. Couldn’t wake up from, even if she tried to wake him. He’d mutter names under his breath, no one that she knew, no one that she knew that he knew.

            Aqua. Terra. Eraqus. Mickey.

            Vanitas. Xehanort.

            His sleep would be fitful and restless, he’d shake and stir. And then it would pass, and he’d go right back to how he had been earlier, quiet and peaceful. And he’d never remember it the next day.

            But even though it never stopped happening, she didn’t worry overmuch. He was okay. She could think of maybe two people who knew her son better than she did, and they both seemed to agree.

            Sora was always okay.

 

            He disappeared when he was 14, the day after a tremendous storm. Riku and Kairi disappeared along with him. She knew that he wasn’t dead. She’d know. Hopefully, his two friends were with him, and they’d be home soon.

            Kairi was back within weeks. Although she begged her to tell her what had happened, all the girl would say was that Sora was still looking for Riku, and they’d be coming home together. It didn’t help.

            It took almost two years for him to find his way back. But that wasn’t the scariest thing about his absence. She wasn’t sure, but she thought that she might have simply… forgotten about him during the space of a year. There was a point where she walked into his room and found it covered in dust, like she hadn’t been keeping it clean. As if the room had just vanished from her cognition for a time. She forgot why seeing Kairi alone brought tears to her eyes, although the sight never failed to make her afraid. She forgot why she cared so inordinately about where Riku, another boy from the main island that she hadn’t really had reason to think about, could possibly be. All of that came roaring back as she walked into the dusty room, suddenly making sense, every picture and knickknack reminding her that her son, her Sora, was missing.

            But he came back. And if he had been looking for Riku, they had found each other, because the older boy was back, too. He was older, his voice was a bit deeper, and he’d gotten so much taller, but he was her Sora, and he was back, and that was enough.

           

            It was the little things that were different. Sora had given her a story about washing up with Riku on a different island, far out to sea, and how it had taken them this long just to get home. But that didn’t explain the year she forgot about him, or where Kairi had disappeared to a few weeks back, or why he seemed to still be on edge, like there was something left undone.

            Then there were the evenings she’d catch him staring at the setting sun from a high branch in a tree outside their house, slowly eating a bar of ice cream. Oddly, it was the sea salt flavour that he’d tried once as a small child and rejected, saying the taste was too confusing. She couldn’t be sure, but the look on his face seemed to say that something important was missing.

            Just for a second, she thought she saw him flicker like a skipped frame in a movie, briefly replaced by a different boy, with blond hair, then a girl with black hair, then the blond boy again, then back to himself. He sighed, then looked around as if he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there, and moved to climb down the tree.

            The next time it happened she hid the ice cream out of curiosity. He seemed not to notice, climbing the tree anyway. She waited until the flickering started to happen, then climbed the tree after him. He started with surprise, but didn’t lose his balance as she sat down beside him.

            “It is a nice view from up here,” she said conversationally.

            He looked at her, like he was guilty about something. “Maybe I should go back inside–” he started, then his expression changed to surprise as she held out one of the ice cream bars to him.

            “No, no need. You know you can tell me if something’s wrong, right? I’m your mother, Sora. There’s nothing that you could have gone through that you can’t tell me about.” She smiled at him, but this seemed to have been the wrong thing to say.

            He smiled back, but just before it slipped into place, she saw a flash of irritation, or anger. It didn’t stay, but it had been there. “Thanks… mom.” She pretended she hadn’t heard the hesitation, but it stung all the same.

            They sat in silence, eating the ice cream, then Sora slipped out of the tree and back into the house, leaving her with more questions and worries than before.

 

            She decided to ask him about it in the morning, but he seemed to have no recollection of the conversation.

            “When were we sitting in the tree?”

            “Last night? I’m sorry for hiding the ice cream on you, but I felt like it would be intruding if I didn’t have an excuse.”

            Sora frowned. “I dunno what you mean, Mom. I think I’d remember having ice cream in the tree last night, right?”

            And she suddenly remembered the dreams. The names.

            “Sora…” she said cautiously, “Does the name…” she fumbled for one of the more outlandish ones, “ _Xehanort_ mean anything to you?”

            It was like flipping a switch. Suddenly her son was on guard, ready for a fight, more intense than she’d ever seen him. “Why are you asking, Mom?” he said, trying to keep his tone light like usual, but she could hear the undercurrent of genuine worry beneath it.

            “When you were little, you’d have these nightmares I could never wake you up from, and you’d say these names, over and over again. That was one of them. I ask because you could never remember them afterwards, and you always got very confused when I’d ask about them.”

            Slowly, Sora relaxed himself out of the ready state. “Oh, I see! Sorry, Mom, no idea,” he said with a grin, the first time she’d ever seen him lie to her face. He wasn’t good at it.

            She let the conversation go off on a different track, but now she was sure. There was something Sora wasn’t telling her.

 

            She waited a while before hiding the ice cream again. Sora sat in the tree anyway, but seemed less surprised this time when she joined him, and took the proffered ice cream without hesitation.

            “The sunsets are always nice here,” he said, and now that she listens for it, there’s something just slightly off about the voice. It’s Sora’s voice, but it’s not his inflections.

            “They look even better down by the beach,” she said.

            “The beach…” He chuckled slightly, a private joke. She didn’t press him on it.

            “I’m sorry for hiding the ice cream on you again. I didn’t want to be intruding without something to offer in return,” she explained. She had told Sora this already, but the boy sitting next to her reacted like it was new information.

            “Hey, it’s you who’s buying it,” he said with a smile. “Still, I’m glad you do bring it with you when you want to talk. S’just not the same without the icing on the cake.”

            “Icing on the cake?” she asked, and his expression suddenly crumpled and closed off.

            “Yeah…A friend of mine used to call it that.”

            She was pretty sure she knew all of Sora’s friends on the island. She stared at the boy beside her and again got the flickering image of a different boy with spiky blond hair.

            “You aren’t my Sora, are you?” she asked, calmly, trying not to scare him.

            The boy gave her a guilty look, like he’d been caught sneaking cookies out of the jar. “No,” he admitted. “Well, sort of. I’m… part of him? It’s complicated.”

            “We’ve still got plenty of ice cream,” she said, intensely curious but willing to let the boy take his time. “Do you have a name of your own?”

            The boy looked straight at her for an uncomfortable amount of time, as if deciding if she could be trusted. “Roxas,” he said, finally. “My name is Roxas.”

            An anagram of her son’s name with an “x” added. “Okay, Roxas,” she said, testing the unfamiliar name, and as she did, the blond boy superimposed himself over Sora’s face for longer than a split second, giving her a glance of a thinner face, but deep blue eyes identical to her son’s. “Can you tell me more about yourself?”

            Sora’s, or rather Roxas’s, face scrunched up in indecision. “I’m actually not sure if I’m allowed. Sora might be mad at me if I give you too much information. He doesn’t want you to worry about him.”

            “Can you talk to him?”

            “No, but I see and hear what he sees and hears. And he hasn’t told you everything.” He shrugged apologetically. “Sorry that has to come from me.”

            “It’s okay. Should I mention to him that we’ve talked?”

            “I… don’t think he knows that I can talk through him. Like you said, he doesn’t remember when I’m out. I was supposed to be absorbed back into him anyway.”

            “Absorbed?”

            Roxas winced. “And I think I’ve already said too much. It’s a bit weird being the person with information they can’t give out, instead of the other way around. I’m sorry.”

            “No, it’s okay, I just… I’m going to have a long conversation with Sora tomorrow.”

            Roxas seemed to react to the tone of her voice. “He honestly, genuinely is trying to save you from worrying about him. He… wishes he could tell you everything. But he made a promise not to, even if he thought he could without worrying you.” Seeing the expression on her face, he added, “He is okay. I’m not a symptom of him going crazy or anything. It’s complicated, but I promise that he’s okay.”

            She looked at the pleading expression on his face, the blond face she was now understanding was Roxas’s face, and smiled despite herself. “I believe you.”

            Roxas leaned back, visibly relieved. After a while, he said, “Thank you for talking to me. Even if we’ve broken the rules somewhat. It gets lonely sitting out here without the others.”

            “The others?” She frowned.

            “Uhhh… Thanks for a nice evening, bye!” And before she could so much as blink, Roxas faded from Sora’s face and her son was back, and very confused as to why they were eating sea salt ice cream in a tree.

 

            The next morning she cornered her son at breakfast. “I had an interesting conversation last night.”

            Sora looked up from the pancakes. “Really? Who with?” he asked, interested.

            “A boy about your age. Said his name was Roxas.” And Sora froze in place, fork halfway to his mouth. She continued. “I know there’s things you think you can’t tell me about the time you were away. I’m not going to press you, because I know you and I know you’ll tell me when you’re ready. But I just want you to know that leaving me in the dark isn’t making me worry any less about you. Not knowing what happened to you, what’s happening to you, is making me worry more than any danger you might have been in. That’s all I wanted to say.” And she stood up, left her plate in the sink, and headed off to work. She could practically hear the gears grinding in her son’s brain, but he doesn’t call out to her to wait, doesn’t stop her to explain.

            Oh well. She meant it when she said she’d wait until he was ready.

            That night, the letter arrived.

 

            It was sealed with red wax, inset with a crown. There was something… off about it, like it didn’t belong in the world somehow. Sora came into the room, saw it in her hand, and stiffened.

            “If that’s what I think it is, I’m sorry for not telling you myself.” He let himself relax a bit, not at ease, just not wound up. “If you have questions it doesn’t answer, I promise I’ll try to explain as best as I can.”

            “Okay,” she says, and he withdraws from the room, leaving her to break the seal and read the letter.

           

            _We’ve never met in person, but allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mickey, and I’m King of a world named Disney Town. I’m also a friend of your son Sora. We met during the time he was away from Destiny Islands._

_Sora contacted me today and told me how it feels unfair to him that you were not allowed to know what has happened to him. He also mentioned that you seem, somehow, to have met Roxas! I don’t have any children of my own, but several of mine and Sora’s close friends do, and I can’t imagine the pain they would be going through if they simply didn’t know what had happened to their loved ones. So, I’m going to tell you, but I ask that you please keep the contents of this letter a secret to everyone except Sora, Riku, and Kairi._

_The first thing you need to know, which I have already implied, is that your Destiny Islands are but one of many worlds that exist in what we call the Realm of Light. Long ago, these were all one world, but a terrible war shattered them into many pieces. Only a select few people know of the existence of other worlds, and that knowledge is jealously guarded. This is why we didn’t allow Sora, or Riku or Kairi, to tell you of what happened to them._

_You mentioned to Sora that about ten years ago, he started having nightmares and saying names. It might surprise you to know that I know these names he mentioned – or it might not, since my name was apparently one of them! Terra, Aqua, and Eraqus were members of an order that protected the worlds of light, bearers of a weapon known as a Keyblade. I myself am one of the few remaining Keyblade wielders, as are Sora, Kairi, and Riku. I will warn you that it is a long, complicated story._

_Since there is a Realm of Light, there is also a Realm of Darkness. During the war I mentioned, Darkness nearly overwhelmed the Light, but was pushed back. Ever since, forces of Darkness have coveted the light, one of these being another name Sora said while asleep: Xehanort, a former Keyblade Master like Eraqus, who abandoned his position to seek the Darkness. Because of him, Darkness engulfed many worlds, including the Destiny Islands. The storm Sora and Riku were lost in was no normal phenomenon. While they were gone, it was as if the islands didn’t exist. They would still be lost if your son hadn’t taken up the Keyblade to rescue his friends, and beat back the Darkness for now._

_While he was able to save Kairi, Riku stayed lost for a while longer. In searching for him, something happened to Sora’s memory. A group called Organization XIII used a girl named Naminé to steal Sora’s memories. Once we saved her from them, she volunteered to put them back, but the process took a whole year! This is the period during which Sora may have faded from your memory, and I must apologize for that. He was put into a deep sleep for that year while his memories were restored. After awakening, he, and Riku and Kairi, along with myself and some old pals of mine, took down the Organization and removed them as a threat to the worlds of light. Your son has been through a lot, and I don’t blame him for thinking you would be upset if you knew! His path has been a dangerous one._

_Gosh, I’m getting ahead of myself; I still owe you an explanation about Roxas! Roxas is what we call a Nobody. If a person is forced by the Darkness to give in to despair and lose their heart, the heart becomes a monster we call a Heartless, and their body loses its ability to feel emotions and becomes what we call a Nobody. Sora was forced to separate his heart from his body in order to awaken Kairi from a coma-like state, and when he did that, his Nobody Roxas was born. Normally, a Somebody and a Nobody don’t coexist, but Sora was restored to himself almost immediately afterwards, while Roxas was still alive. He spent a year working unknowingly for the Organization that stole Sora’s memories, but willingly sacrificed himself to allow Sora’s memories to be made whole again. It’s actually kinda odd that Roxas is still alive inside Sora’s heart, but he very much wanted to be his own person while he was alive. Maybe that desire’s still strong, you know?_

_Roxas’s isn’t the only heart that Sora’s carrying inside of him, though. Terra and Aqua had a friend named Ventus, whose heart was shattered into pieces by Xehanort a long time ago. Some of those pieces were offered refuge by your son, when he was just a child. He didn’t know what he was doing, but that’s just the kind of kind heart that Sora has, offering aid to a stranger like it was nothing! Ventus has his own body, but as of yet we don’t have a way to restore him to himself, so his body is sleeping. This is why you’ve only seen Ven when Sora’s also asleep!_

_I don’t want to scare you, but there’s a good chance that our troubles aren’t over yet. Agents of Darkness are still out there, and while things are calm for now, I don’t think they will be for long. I will almost certainly have to request Sora, Riku, and Kairi’s aid again to fight the Darkness. I hope you will be able to forgive me when that day comes; or at least, forgive Sora for agreeing._

_Mickey_

            Carefully, she folded the letter back up and went to Sora’s room. He was sitting on his bed, and seemed worried. She crossed the room to him and gathered him in her arms, holding on to him tightly.

            “Your friend the King wasn’t exactly generous with specific details,” she said after holding him for a while. “If you want to talk about what you’ve been through, what you’ve seen, I want to listen.”  

            “It’s a long story, Mom, and I kinda slept through part of it,” he joked.

            She smiles at him. “Whatever you feel you can tell me.”

            It’s a long night for the two of them, and there’s a lot of laughter from them both, a lot of tears from them both, and a lot of hugs between them both. The truth is finally out, even if only between them, and she feels closer to her son than she has since he returned.

            But he’s not the only one she wants to talk to.

           

            Roxas actually seemed pleased to see her as she climbed the tree after him. She hadn’t even bothered to hide the ice cream this time, but he didn’t grab any on his way out, which she took as a sign he wanted to talk, too. They sat for a bit, just enjoying the sunset and the flavour.

            “So when you said you were a part of Sora,” she started, “you meant…”

            Roxas sighed. “I was created from him, so I had to come back to him to make him whole.”

            “But you’d still like to be your own person?”

            “Wouldn’t you? I mean, I was only alive as myself for a year, and honestly I don’t quite remember half of it for some reason, but I liked being me. I’m not Sora. The entire time I was alive people kept comparing me to him. I just wanted to be me.” Roxas curled up into a ball, keeping his balance on the branch. She wasn’t sure if he’d be comfortable with a hug the way Sora is, but she leaned over and puts an arm around him anyway. He started, but eventually leaned back into her. She got the feeling this was a new experience for him.

            “Sora spent the evening yesterday telling me about his adventures. Would you like to tell me about what you went through?”

            “Really?” he asked.

            “You seem very lonely. And since you can’t directly talk to Sora, why not talk to me?” She smiled encouragingly at him, and Roxas just looks confused.

            “I’m not sure where to start… I don’t remember much about the Organization, and all of the stuff after that wasn’t really real.”

            “Why don’t you tell me what you can remember? When Sora was asleep and I forgot about him,” and it still hurt to admit that, even though it wasn’t her fault, “I could piece together that something was missing from the hole he left in my life. Maybe if we go through what you do remember, we’ll figure out what sort of things you’re forgetting.”

            “Maybe.” So Roxas began to talk, first about the memories he’s sure of, the computer simulation of a town bathed in twilight and a trio of kids his own age, then the fuzzier memories, of Organization XIII. She had discussed the Organization at length with Sora, so she wasn’t confused when the conversation turned to Axel, the Nobody who had claimed to be Roxas’s best friend. Roxas’s memories were still confused, but from what he had been able to piece together, Axel had been telling the truth. There were more tears during this discussion than the one she had had with Sora. Eventually Roxas started to get used to being hugged.

            “I still feel like pieces are missing, though. Like there was something I’m forgetting… Someone… else…” Roxas trailed off, and started staring off into the distance, the same glassy-eyed look she had noted whenever he ceded control back to Sora.

            “Imagine that. Guess there wasn’t enough distinct about me to be worth remembering.” The tone is dark, but it’s born of hurt, not malice. She blinked as she realized that this wasn’t Sora, or Roxas, or the sleeping Ventus, but someone else. She caught this new person’s eyes and could see incredible pain and loneliness in them. And just for a second, a flash of dark hair.

            “…Hello?” she tried. “You’re not Sora either, right?”

            Anger. “Absolutely not.”

            “May I ask who you are?”

            “I thought maybe Roxas could put the pieces back together after everything we went through. Shouldn’t have held my breath.” Bitterness, born of sadness. “Ask Riku. See if he can figure out what’s missing.” Sora’s eyes began to go glassy again, the new person leaving.

            “Wait,” she says. “Do you have a name?”

            The new person looked at her, not angry anymore, not bitter, just drained. “Yes. But there’s no point in telling you if no one remembers I existed. Ask Riku.”

            “I’ll do that. Will you come to talk to me again?”

            The person considered this. “It would be better than being forgotten, I suppose.”

            Sora’s eyes came back into focus, and he almost slid off the branch. “Whoops. Talking to Roxas again, Mom? How’s he doing?”

            “Sora… You have Roxas’s heart, and part of Ventus’s heart, inside you, right?”

            “Yeah, why?”

            “Is it possible… that there might be someone else in there, too?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

            She didn’t get a chance to talk to Riku before another letter arrived, calling him and Sora to another world, to test their Keyblade mastery. They’re expected to be gone for only three days. They return after a week. Riku has passed. Sora has not, through no fault of his own. They tell her and Kairi the story, and she suddenly realizes this is the perfect time to ask. Riku has been inside Sora’s head.

            “Riku, you said you met Roxas and probably Ventus when you were in Sora’s heart, right?” she asked. He looked a bit uncomfortable, but she doesn’t blame him. It was obviously a very intimate experience. “Was there anyone else there?”

            “Yes… A dark-haired girl. I feel like I should know who she was but for whatever reason, I don’t.” He pressed his lips together, thinking hard. “She looked… kind of like Kairi used to when we were younger. Her face, but black hair, and…” he trailed off, and looked closely at his friends. “Sora’s eyes. Just like Roxas.”

            She told him about her conversations with Roxas, and how someone else had talked to her just before they left.

            “And they said to ask me? If it was this girl, I feel even worse about not recognizing her.”

            “I don’t recall meeting anyone like that,” Sora said.

            “If it’s someone Roxas and I both met, then it was probably while you were asleep,” Riku suggested. “I wonder if…” He trailed off again, this time looking at Kairi. “I wonder if Naminé would know.”

            At her confused look, the trio explained to her that Kairi also had had a Nobody at one point, just like Roxas; a blonde girl named Naminé. She had been the one to unwillingly take Sora’s memories apart, but also voluntarily put them back together again. She had been absorbed back into Kairi the same way Roxas was into Sora, but if Roxas was still around…

            “I need a pad of paper and something to draw with,” Kairi said. “If she’s still here with me, that’ll be the best way to find her.”

 

            It had taken a while for anything to happen. Kairi asked that they leave the room while they waited, and had sat comfortably with the art supplies for a while until the same glassy look that Sora got when Roxas came to the fore slid over her face. For a second, they saw a flash of long blonde hair.

            “Naminé?” she asked, and Sora and Riku nodded. They drew back as she knocked on the open door, so as not to startle the girl. Kairi – or rather, Naminé – jumped a little, but allowed her to come in.

            She sat across from the girl, and Naminé didn’t look directly at her, focusing instead on the sketchbook in her hands.

            “I wanted to thank you,” she said, and the girl flinched.

            “For what?” she asked. “I took your son away from you.”

            “That may be so, but you also brought him back to me. And from the way Riku and Roxas tell it, it was the bringing back that you put your heart into. So, thank you, for my son.”

            Naminé stopped sketching for a second and looked up at her, really looked. She then flipped the page in the sketchbook and started drawing again. She couldn’t quite tell from her perspective, but it could have been a portrait of her face.

            “I also wanted to ask you about something. Or rather, about someone.”

            “Who?”

            “You don’t know?”

            Naminé put the pen down again and shook her head. “I… usually sort of sleep in Kairi’s heart. I know she looks for me sometimes, but I’m not really supposed to exist, anyway. I don’t know what she knows.”

            She leaned across the table towards the girl, still catching flashes of blonde instead of auburn, and whispered conspiratorially. “Do you want to know a secret?”

            Naminé looked confused, but nodded.

            “There’s not a person alive who’s _supposed_ to exist. Existing is just something we _do._ That doesn’t make you any different from anyone else.”

            She decided that she hadn’t noticed if a tear had fallen down the girl’s cheek. “Naminé, you’re not alone. Kairi asked me to tell you to look at the first page of your book.”

            Curious, she flipped through the pages and let out a small gasp at the short note written in Kairi’s hand.

            _I can feel how lonely you are even if I can’t talk to you. I would like to get to know you better, even if we can only leave each other notes like this._

_It’s not just me, either. Riku worries about you, and Sora keeps saying he wants to “meet you for real this time”. I don’t mind you coming out every once in a while to see them. But, pick your times beforehand, please._ A wink had been sketched at the bottom and she didn’t care to speculate about what her son’s friend was implying.

Something told her that this sort of affirmation and positive regard hadn’t been very forthcoming in the young Nobody’s life. She let Naminé gather herself, feeling the urge to give her a hug but not wanting to cross the boundary of the table without asking first.

            “What did you want to ask me about?” Naminé finally asked.

            “My son appears to be sharing his heart with three people. One is named Roxas, whom you know. Another is named Ventus, who has been there for a long time. The third, according to Riku, is a girl with dark hair that he thinks is familiar, but neither he nor Roxas can remember her. We were hoping, considering your power over memory, that maybe you could give us a clue, or at the very least, a name?”

            Utter shock crossed the girl’s features, and she worried for a second she had overloaded her. “She’s alive,” Naminé whispered, “I was wrong, _she’s alive_ …” and now the tears couldn’t be ignored. She offered her a tissue from a box near the table, and moved herself around to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

            “I’m sorry for the emotional ringer we’ve been putting you through.”

            The girl looked at her and, almost instinctively, leaned into her arm, crying harder when the touch became a hug. She mentally shook her head. No wonder it was hard for people to tell if Nobodies had hearts if they were kept at arms’ length physically and emotionally.

            She let Naminé cry herself out, shooing Sora and Riku away when the two came to the door, and when the girl had quieted down, she asked, “Who is this third person in Sora’s heart?”

            “She was a doll implanted with some of Sora’s stolen memories, as a backup in case the Organization couldn’t control Roxas. I thought that she would die when the memories were returned to Sora. And… I told her as much. That she would vanish, and… that nobody would remember her.”

            _“…Guess there wasn’t enough distinct about me to be worth remembering…”_ Suddenly the bitterness in the dark-haired girl’s voice was making sense. “And that’s why Riku and Roxas didn’t know who she was?”

            Naminé nodded. “It must be worse for her with Roxas, because they’re both part of Sora now and he still doesn’t remember. They were very close.”

            “She said that she had a name, but that it didn’t matter what it was if no one remembered her. Is there anything I can do to help her?”

            Naminé thought for a second. “Her name is Xion. I don’t know if there’s anything I could tell you to do; I only met her the once. Maybe telling Riku or Roxas her name will shake some memories loose? If she’s still alive, then maybe I was wrong and they still have memories of her they can’t access. Roxas especially.”

            She smiled at the girl under her arm. “Thank you, Naminé.”

            Naminé looked up at her. “If… if you and Kairi don’t mind, could we stay like this a little while longer?”

            “Of course.”

 

            Riku clapped a hand to his forehead like he had a migraine when she told them what Naminé had told her, especially the girl’s name: Xion.

            “I… think I fought her. Well, if you call that a fight. I just knocked her out. She… had the Kingdom Key.” He looked up, directly at Sora, but none of his passengers seemed to want to interject.

            “Kinda wish I could call Roxas out, but it doesn’t really work like that,” he said. “Guess we’ll have to wait for sunset, huh?”

            “Looks like it,” she said. She looked back over at Riku, who was slowly gaining a look of horror as more and more memories returned.

            “Wow, I was… horrible to her. I was so focused on getting Sora back I was perfectly willing to let her…”

            Kairi shushed him. “Did she seem mad at you when you met her? I know Roxas forgave you, I’m sure Xion will as well.” She put an arm around his shoulder and gave a quiet grin. “Really, the only person who hasn’t forgiven you is you, silly.”

            “Exactly! You gotta stop beating yourself up, Riku!” Sora leaned over to muss his hair, also grinning, and the wink Kairi had drawn on her note to Naminé suddenly had more context that she didn’t want to think about.

           

            Roxas nearly fell off the branch when she told him Xion’s name. It didn’t seemed to have registered when Sora had learned it, but now his memories were flooding back just as intensely as Riku’s had.

            “How… how could I forget her?” he asked no one in particular, tearing up. “I was ready to tear the Organization’s fake Kingdom Hearts out of the sky for what they did to her. I would have if Riku hadn’t gotten in my way.” He stared at his hands. He wasn’t able to summon Sora’s Keyblades, but something told her it wasn’t stopping him from trying.

            “It was the three of us, it wasn’t just Axel and me, it was me and Axel _and Xion_ …”

            “Are your missing memories starting to come back?” she asked gently.

            “Yeah. And… I think I know how to make this up to her. Not completely, but at least a start.” He straightened up and looked at her intently. “I need you to take me to the beach.”

 

            After he explained his plan to her, she suggested asking Riku and Kairi along to help. Reluctantly, he agreed, and the next day the four of them were on the beach, looking for seashells. Roxas had explained to her that, while they were with the Organization, there had been a period during which he had taken ill; Riku noted that it was around the same time that Sora had entered Castle Oblivion, and had been put to sleep to have his memory repaired. At that time, Xion had started bringing him seashells from a world she was visiting on missions. He had returned the favour a couple months later when she had also gotten sick.

            “So she came here, to the Destiny Islands?” she asked him, and he nodded.

            “I think so. It’s the only place I’ve ever been to with a beach like this.”

            Meeting up with Kairi and Riku had been awkward, until Roxas extended a hand to Riku and apologized half-seriously for “knocking him on his ass”. This had made Kairi giggle and they had demanded an explanation from the two boys, leading to Roxas’s first smile of the day and an embarrassed flush on Riku’s face. Kairi had taken to Roxas immediately after that, and he seemed in awe of her in turn.

            It was strange seeing Roxas moving around in Sora’s body. Where Sora was familiar and comfortable with his friends, Roxas held himself back. Where Sora was relaxed, Roxas was stiff and unsure. It must have been odd for Kairi and Riku as well, though Kairi was infinitely patient with him, and Riku had actually met Roxas before, if never socially. It was a different dynamic than they shared with Sora (God, she _hoped_ it was different if what she had seen earlier was a reliable indication), but it wasn’t bad. They accepted him, and didn’t try to look for their friend in him, which she knew was very important for Roxas.

            It would be important for Xion as well, she was sure.

            They managed quite a haul. Roxas held up a long, thin shell in pale blue and smiled. “Thank you for this. Hopefully she’ll accept the apology. I’m just not quite sure how to, uh…”

            “Get her into the driver’s seat to see it?” she asked. He nodded.

            “Well, we put me into a situation Naminé was comfortable with to draw her out,” said Kairi. “Maybe we find a situation Xion is comfortable in?”

            “In the tree at sunset,” she suggested. “It’s where she talked to me the first time.”

            “And maybe write her a note,” Kairi added. “It’s been working for Naminé and me.”

            Roxas smiled at their encouragement. “Thank you.”

 

            As the sun slipped towards the horizon that evening, it found her and Sora sitting in the tree in their yard. Her son had readily agreed to Roxas’s plan, and was holding both a stick of sea salt ice cream and a note from his Nobody to his forgotten friend.

            “So how long do you think it’s going to be until she comes out?” he asked her.

            “I don’t know. Last time it was after a long talk with Roxas about what he’d been through. I think she was upset that he still couldn’t remember her.”

            Sora sighed. “Hey Mom? I’m hoping that maybe we’ll find a way to get Roxas, Naminé, and Xion their own bodies. If and when we do that, I don’t think those two have anywhere to go, so… would it be all right with you if I offered to let them stay with us?”

            She was quiet for a second, though she already knew her answer. “We’d need a bigger house,” she said eventually. “Xion will need her own room even if I make you and Roxas share. Or maybe you should each get your own so he doesn’t have to deal with Riku and Kairi sneaking in with you.” The embarrassed blush on his face confirmed what she had been starting to piece together over the past couple of days. She smiled. “Calm down. I’m happy for you. Considering you’ve saved the world twice already, I don’t need to tell you to be responsible, right?”

            Still red, Sora choked out a “Thanks” before shoving the ice cream in his mouth for a reason not to talk. He then started to giggle in the same way Kairi was prone to.

            She leaned over to look at his eyes and sure enough, they had gone glassy again. She waited for the giggling to die down before asking, “Xion?”

            Like Roxas before her, the image of a black-haired, blue-eyed girl superimposed itself over her son’s face for longer than a split second. The girl smiled. “That’s right. How did you find out?”

            “I asked Naminé.” The girl’s expression soured a bit, and she rebuked her gently. “She feels horrible for what she told you, and cried with relief to find out you weren’t gone forever.”

            “It was me or Roxas,” she said. “I don’t regret choosing for him to survive.”

            “He remembered you, once we knew your name.”

            Her face lightened considerably. “He did?”

            “He left you a note. I don’t know what it says, it was private.”

            She looked down at the note in her hand, and her face reddened much like Sora’s had earlier; it was the same face, after all. “Let’s just say, it is,” she said, and hurriedly stuffed the note into one of Sora’s pockets.

            “There was one other thing he wanted you to see,” she said, chuckling quietly. _Definitely separate rooms_ , she thought to herself.

            “What is it?”

            She pointed down to the lawn, where the words “I’M SORRY” had been written out in seashells. Xion’s mouth dropped open.

            “I’m sure that given the chance he would have done the entire note in seashells, but we could only find so many,” she said. The look on her face was perfect and she wished there was a way to let Roxas see how much his gesture had touched her. She could have taken a picture, but somehow she didn’t think Roxas wanted a picture of Sora’s face, even if it was Xion making the expression. Bad memories.

            “This means a lot to me. Thank you,” she whispered. “I should let Sora get back to himself now, though. I’m sure you’d rather have your son–”

            “If you don’t have to go, I’d like for you to stay for a while. Roxas’s memories in general are still foggy, so I don’t know a lot about you. I’d like to, though. Besides,” and she gave the girl a hug that, like the other two Nobodies, nearly made her jump out of her skin before she settled into it like she’d never been held before, “you haven’t finished your ice cream yet.”

            Xion laughed, and the two settled into a long conversation as the sun set.

 

            She talked with Xion for so long that when she finally returned control to Sora, he was already half asleep. She walked him up to his room and was about to turn in for the night when she heard him whisper a word.

            _“Aqua…”_

            She froze and turned back to him, watching Sora start to toss and turn in his sleep. It was just like it had been when he was a small child, but now she knew why it was happening.

            She walked over to him and sat down next to his head, gently smoothing his hair. “Ventus?” she asked, quietly, even though she knew she wouldn’t wake him.

            Sora’s head turned towards her voice, and now that she knew what she was looking for she could see the image of a blond boy who was the spitting image of Roxas; maybe slightly younger, but definitely the same face. She continued to brush his hair.

            “I don’t know if you can understand me, Ventus, but I want you to know you’re safe with my son. I know you protected him during his test recently, and I know he’ll keep protecting you until they can restore you to your body. I’m looking forwards to meeting you when they do; your friends Aqua and Terra, too. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

            She had no real way of promising any of that, but the words seemed to ease Ventus’s rest. He gave a small smile, and his body slowed and stopped its motion. She continued to sit with him until he seemed to be completely comfortable, and gently closed the door on her way out.

            She was immensely proud of her son, proud of him for saving the world, but also for freely offering himself as a safe haven for these lost souls.

            She looked forwards to meeting them all in person someday. With any luck, it would be soon.

**Author's Note:**

> Aw shit my hand slipped.  
> This is entirely inspired by A Grasping Hold by Splintered_Star, which deals with the Destiny Trio's parents meeting their mental passengers. Sora's mother, however, only gets to meet Roxas, and not Ventus or Xion, both of which were meetings that interested me. I should note that their work was in turn inspired by a series of fics grouped as Beyond the Ocean Beach by Edemonia_Dantes and Rayemars, none of which I myself have read as of this writing.  
> I had considerable difficulty staying in one tense while writing this, slipping into present tense when I should have been in past tense. I think I caught all the slips and made it uniformly past tense, but if I missed some, my apologies.  
> I'm never going to say I have a firm grasp of how much time actually passed between KHII and Dream Drop, much less when exactly Re:coded took place in that time, so again my apologies if this takes place over a longer time than was actually available between the two games. This also assumes that the events of Birth by Sleep had been related to our protagonists prior to Dream Drop.  
> I can't promise more Kingdom Hearts from me in the future, but you never know. Depends on whether or not Xion's ultimate fate in KHIII is to my liking or not.
> 
> EDIT 11/25/18: One year later, that last sentence has aged like milk.


End file.
